How to be Smarter: The point of listing your interests at the bottom of your resume is to give the interviewer some easy topics you two can talk about as ice breakers during the interview, and also to make your resume seem more “human” during the screening process. Instead of listing the usual very general interests everyone has, make them more specific. “Traveling, Reading, and Sports” becomes “African Travel, Reading Non-fiction, and Playing on an Intramural Kickball Team.”

How to Prettier: If a tee shirt can be both intellectual and romantic, this is it.

How to be (less) Awkward: If you don’t know the answer to question at work, instead of just answering “I don’t know,” be sure to offer up the name of a person that does, or have a time frame for when you can find out the answer. “I don’t know the name of the report,” turns into “I don’t know the name of the report, but I’m sure Melanie in Marketing does. I’ll ask her now,” or “I don’t know the name of the report, but let me go through the files and I’ll have an answer after lunch.”

6 Responses

The smarter is so true as one who does recruting and hiring. I always look for the small humanizing details on a resume to break the ice and get the person talking about themselves – otherwise I don’t really get to know them and can’t evaluate whether I would want to spend large amounts of the day around them….